FateDragon's Age- Champion and Dancer
by sayain673
Summary: "I seek the Champion of Kirkwall and his companion, the Sword Dancer! You knew them both before they became legend, dwarf, so start talking!" While his cousin was off saving the world with a black armored and red cloaked archer by her side, Garret Hawke began the adventure of his lifetime when his family was saved by a young woman whose body is made of swords...RATED T for safety!


Dear Readers,

Because of writer's block that is impeding my process for the next chapter of _Blade of the Emperor_, I am taking the honored _ Gabriel Blessing _approach to dealing with writer's block, A.K.A. the bane of all authors:

WRITE MORE FANFICTION! Yeah...I know. I'm a horrible person aren't I?

I hope you enjoy the latest bout of madness that came from a free-write session as I listened to the soundtrack for Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance.

sayain673

P.S. And regarding a certain white haired Epic Spirit and his role in this franchise...his tale is coming soon. I found this counterpart (no pun intended) to be easier to write.

P.P.S. On a side note, my birthday is on Wednesday (May 8th)! As my birthday gift to my followers and fans, I hope to get the next chapter of Shirou's misadventures in the 40k universe to you (currently at 8K words and halfway finished but knows where the plot is going!). **_Final exams are a bitch._**..

P.P.P.S. **[OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!]** There is now a forum for the lore debates of _Blade of the Emperor_. It is called "The Lost Son's Workshop". Why did I do this? Because my inbox is filling up with too many questions from TYPE-Moon and 40k fans. Please delegate all lore debates and speculations to the forum, please. Slaughter each other responsibly and safely, my fans.

**DISCLAIMER-** sayain673 has no ownership over neither _Fate/Stay Night_ and its affiliates nor _Dragon Age_ and its affiliates. _Fate/Stay Night_ is owned by Kinoke Nasu and TYPE-Moon. _Dragon Age_ is owned by BioWare.

* * *

The grunts of exertion barely gave the dwarf any moment of time to prepare himself before the burly humans hoisting him by his shoulders threw him into the back room of an unoccupied mansion. His flight path ended painfully, crashing into a wooden chair that somehow managed not to shatter nor break under the dwarf's girth. Hmph. That meant that the carpenter had been telling the truth when he said that the things he made were neigh indestructible, even by dwarves under duress or the humans causing the duress.

Rubbing the dust off of his clean-shaven face, normally a taboo among his kindred's culture, the dwarf hoisted himself up onto the chair. His anger and annoyance quickly gave way to impassiveness when he heard the clanking of metal against metal precede the entrance of an armored figure. The back room the dwarf was in had little in the means of light, but his vision could compensate easily, a trait that helped him and his comrades many times in the past navigate through the dark dwelling-places of the world and their evils. The armor was slender, masterfully crafted (by human standards, at least) to fit onto a lithe form, a woman, he noted with surprise, if the curve of her chest armor was any indication. By her side, a heavy tome rested in the crook of her left arm, leaving the other free hand within reach for the dagger hanging at her belt.

But it was the blazing symbol of a sun that gave him the idea of where her loyalties lay. Ah yes...the Chantry of the Maker's Light. Now the dwarf knew why they were here for him. How could he play this off, though, without having a knife suck between his ribs? Glib and cheerful before becoming serious, or perhaps be serious throughout the entire interaction with he occasional joke? No, that wouldn't do; blasted Templars had no sense of bloody humor and he had been one to experience what would happen when-IF a certain trouble-maker and his equally insane white-haired partner tried to see if the warriors of the Chantry possessed such a trait. He had sworn that day that those were two men with balls the size of a certain pirate queen's tits.

Deciding to play this extremely close to his hairy chest, the dwarf leaned forward on his hands, a pensive expression setting on his face as he began to talk to the woman. "Well, I must admit that I've had gentler invitations."

The woman ignored his flippant comment and stepped closer to the dwarf, closing the tome in her hands circling the table before she stopped a few paces next to him. "I am Cassandra Pentaghast, Seeker of the Chantry," the woman said with an imperial tone that matched her title...whatever the blazes that was. Seeker of the Chantry? That was a new one, and he had heard _many_ stories about the Chantry. She nodded stiffly towards the two guards flanking the dwarf's chair and their response was to bow before making their way to the door. The door closed behind them with an ominous bang, leaving the two of them alone inside of the back room.

"And, uh," he began, clearing his throat before continuing the thread of dialogue, "What is it that you would be seeking, Miss Seeker?"

She closed the book in her hands before responding with her imperious tone. "I seek the Champion, Varric Tethras" she declared, and though he was mildly surprised she knew his name, he didn't show it on his face, much to her disappointment that was evident on her features. "I seek the Champion of Kirkwall and his companion, the Sword Dancer."

The woman's words confirmed the gut feeling inside of his stomach: they were here searching for the two of them, but for good or ill purpose, he could not tell. There were too many stories he had heard about their religious organization, ranging from finding a cup that could bestow immortality to a staff of blue crystal that belonged to the Maker. They were infamous for their narrow-minded view on the world, and he wasn't able to discern what they would do with his friends. But based on what interaction he had with the Chantry, he decided on the latter of the earlier two options...at least from the view point of the persons this _Seeker _was seeking.

"Humph," he grunted, using the small of his finger to clean the inner passages of his ear. "And what makes you think that I would have any knowledge of their persons?"

He was only aware of the shadow flying towards his body before something heavy smacked him in the center of his face. Biting back a curse as he felt something crack, he grabbed his head in response to the sudden pain, glancing down briefly to see what had hit him. The tome that the woman was reading earlier, currently positioned in his lap, now possessed a dent in its cover in the shape of a dwarven nose.

"You know exactly why I'm here, Telthras!" the Seeker lunged forward, unsheathing the dagger and pushing the tip against his throat. He flinched and his throat bobbed up and down as he struggled to swallow without opening his neck on the jagged edge. "It's time to start talking, dwarf. I hear you're good at it!" She finished her sentence by reversing the blade and stabbing it towards his leg. He flinched, expecting pain from the sudden hamstringing but when he opened his eyes, he saw that the blade had pierced the tome.

Lifting the book in his hands, he studied the pages it had flipped open to. The blade had gone through the icon of two hawks in flight, drawn so the talons crested each other to form the icon of his friend's family. The crest was drawn above the interwoven icon of a crossed sword and bladed mage scepter, symbolizing their owners, siblings who's love for family carried them out of the fires of Ferelden.

The next page depicted a hexagon, containing the portraits of those closest to the Champion. Whoever painted them must have had expert information to have rendered the Companions in such faithful detail. There was the brooding elf with the stick up his ass, scowling at him even in his watercolor form. The pirate queen gave a tantalizing smile from the top of the shape, atop the left side of his own portrait. Bellow his icon, he could make out the tattoos of the elvish mage. The spirit healer gave a melancholy smile from the bottom as the captain of the guard above him carried herself as one befitting of her status. In the center, the sullen prince gave a dark stare that _radiated_ self-righteousness.

But one portrait stood high above the hexagon, given more prominence than the seven other companions. Within it, a young woman gave a sardonic smile, her red grey eyes shining brightly. They even managed to depict the unusual style that she kept her snow white hair in, gracefully flowing down to meet her shoulders. Only the tip of her black armor and the beginnings of a red cloak were seen in the portrait. This was the Sword Dancer.

His senses were screaming at him not to comply with the woman, but his instinct told him "why not?" and throw caution to the wind. After all, he was a dwarf, and though it was a racial stereotype to assume that all dwarves had a penchant for gambling, it was a true one, nonetheless, and applied to him as well. And even if the Chantry did manage to catch the two of them, he was _very_ sure that they could eradicate them from the face of the earth. "What do you wish to know?"

"Everything," Cassandra commanded from the other end of the room. "Start from the beginning."

**_-Scene Break-_**

_From the path bellow, four hurlocks scrambled up the hill. Brandishing cleavers and bloody swords, they searched the top of the clearing for any survivors they could find. Behind them, Ferelden burned, smoke rising from all corners in the distance as everything in the path of the Blight was consumed by the ravenous hunger of the darkspawn. Nothing was spared from their rampage._

_The lead hurlock paused, sniffing the air and tasting the surrounding scents. Something was here, something was here and hiding. Something was here and hiding and wanted to kill them. It registered the scent of humans nearby and began gargling to its pack, but it was too late to prevent their own demise. _

_Something whistled through the air and the leader felt something punch through its armor. It screeched in pain as it registered an iron spike that had pierced through its rib cage and lungs. Gurgling it went down to the dusty ground, hearing another projectile split the skull of the darkspawn behind it. The survivors roared, turning their heads towards the smoking hillside to try to find the source of the attack._

_"RAAAAAAARGH!" Suddenly, a man clad in heavy armor and wielding a great-sword charged them from the side. With a single strike, he bisected the first hurlock, sending a slew of black ichor into the sky as the fell beast died. The remaining darkspawn screamed and charged the warrior, intent on avenging the loss of its pack member, but it was, ultimately, a futile gesture. The blade shattered upon contact with the human's weapon and as its owner looked on in shock, the blade took off its head._

_A woman, nay a young girl, walked from behind a hill, briefly nodding to her companion before moving to the hurlock leader. Where the other was heavily armored, she was only clad in a light form-fitting set of black armor, girdled by a red cloak that swayed in the blowing winds. Where the warrior sported a full beard of black hair matted with blood, her white hair gracefully glided down her back and over her shoulders. Where the warrior carried a sword of cold steel, she carried a bow of ebony night. _

_She looked upon the monster grey eyes hardening in disgust for the filth that had dared attack them. In response, the dying creature roared in defiance, splattering the red robes black with darkspawn ichor. With a single gesture and a flash of light, a nameless sword appeared in the girl's hands and in one stroke, she silenced the monster's defiance forever._

_"Maker preserve us," the warrior murmured upon closer inspection of the corpses. "These were scouts."_

_"We knew that we had to face them sooner or later," the archer replied, watching the sword she held disappear in shards of light. "And I think that they're coming over the next hill."_

_Indeed, her words were true. Already coming, a fresh horde of darkspawn hurlocks came from the paths that led down from the hill. Shrieking and clamoring they threw themselves from the path in a frenzy to spill the blood of the mortals and corrupt the pure and innocent. In the name of the old gods, they would not be denied!_

_"Ready yourself, my friend," the swordsman advised, cracking his neck joints in anticipation for the battle. A flash of light caused his eyes to flicker briefly to the sides. __The bow was gone. Now in the archer's hands, two curved swords of black and white rested. A smirk rested on her face as she responded to the warrior's silent inquiry._

_"They were always there."_

_The hillside became a slaughterhouse the instant the first darkspawn attacked at them. Standing together, they fell upon the horde in a frenzy of strikes. Predators soon became prey as they met their doom at the hands of the human companions. The warrior's great strength fell many with every strike he landed, sending bodies flying and corrupt blood across the ashen earth. The archer moved with the grace of a dancer, but her dance was conducted by death, her swords set the rhythmic and her enemy was her partner. Her swords hurt, no, _burned_ the creatures that came in contact, sending them screaming to their deaths as they clutched blackened limbs and smoking pieces of flesh._

_A roar was heard, drawing the heroes' attention towards their latest challenge: an ogre. It charged at the pair, swinging a massive club without any regard of striking fellow darkspawn or crushing them underfoot. Swordsman and archer dodged the clumsy strike. In response to this, the beast roared in anger, continuing its clumsy assault towards the closest target it could find- the archer. _

_The warrior was greatly troubled, for his path to his comrade was blocked by the hurlocks fortunate to survive the beast's berserking charge. But his friend remained untroubled, for she dropped one sword and snapped her fingers. A light flared behind her and suddenly, the air was filled with swords. There were short swords, long swords, curved swords, and even weapons that were not swords- spears, axes, falchions, warhammers and other exotic weapons the swordsman could not name. This was not lost upon the ogre, who paused mid charge and stared in dumb wonder at all the shiny things his eyes could see._

_"Fire."_

_With that word, the wall of weapons hurled themselves at the monster in an endless volley of cold metal and iron hate. Within seconds, what was once a hulking darkspawn was reduced to a hunk of torn flesh and ruined muscle, resembling a pin-cushion that had swords in its side instead of knitting needles. __The warrior laughed as he killed the last hurlock that hindered the path to his friend, but it was quick to turn into a growl of annoyance when another wave of the creatures swarmed from up the hill._

_"We can't keep this up forever," the archer said as the warrior stood by her side._

_"I don't see any other option-"_

_The warrior's reply was cut off by a shriek that was harsh enough to send the hurlocks screaming in turn. The heroes looked up to the cliff high above them. Resting on the perch, a dragon was watching the battle bellow its perch, but now it seemed that it took an active interest in the fray. Unfurling its wings, it took off from the cliff, descending upon the darkspawn like an angry god and breathed its deadly fire onto their ranks. Swordsman and archer watched as the dragon circled around them and-_

_-Scene Break-_

"That's a load of bullshit and you know it dwarf!" Cassandra interrupted, jolting him out of the trance he had spun himself into. He sighed, somewhat guilty that he had been caught lying but more disappointed that she could not appreciate a more interesting rendition of the story. Chantry members and their short tempers made for a very poor audience...unless they were watching some poor sod being executed for being a heretic.

"Does that not match the story that you've heard, Seeker?"

"I'm not interested in stories!" she shouted, indignant and angry. "I came to hear the truth."

"What makes you think that I know the truth?" he asked, adding a smugness into his voice that was probably stupid on his part.

"Don't lie to me!" she suddenly started towards the dwarf with another angry expression on her face. "You knew them before they became Champion and Dancer!"

"...even if I did, I don't know where they are now," he said with a hint of bitterness to his voice that he didn't have to fake. The day that they were found missing, the group had panicked and searched tirelessly for days on end. Eventually, they determined that the two of them were no longer in Kirkwall and had to be somewhere else, beyond reach for the time being.

She was silent for a moment before she continued speaking. "...do you have any idea what's at stake here?"

"Let me guess...your precious Chantry has fallen to pieces and put the world upon the brink of war. And you need the two people who could help you put it back together."

"They were at the heart of the war when it first began. If you cannot point me to them...then tell me everything you know!"

"Aren't you worried that I'll make it up as I go?" he asked.

The reply was laced with impatience, but filled with grim determination. "Not...at...all."

He smiled. So the woman could put up with him...for the time being at least. That deserved a reward, and what better reward than one in the form of story, whose characters were still living and filling out the pages? "Very well then. We must start from the beginning..."

**__****_Chapter One: To the Beginning- First Tale _**

**__****_Release Date: [5/6/13]_**

_"The Fifth Blight had been unleashed on Ferelden. Out of the dark places of the earth, the darkspawn poured out, goaded by the Archdemon, to clash against the might of the Ferelden army. At one moment, it had seemed that they would fall, but when Teyrn Loghain and his forces left the King to die, the fell army slaughtered every last man and woman they could get their hands on. _

_Unopposed, the horde marched on the village of Lothering. The village burned, and many innocents were slaughtered. The Champion's family barely escaped in time. But note this: there would be no Champion nor his family if not for the intervention of the Dancer..."_

The bastards were persistent, he had to give them that much. For miles beyond the burning village, they had been chased by the dark bastards and Garett could have sworn easy recognition based on the odd gargle or war-cry. But they possessed an inhuman endurance, for that was what they were, while they were beginning to tire. He and Carver were natural warriors, trained in the King's army (and fortunate enough not to have been at the slaughter at Ostagar) and possessing high endurance, but Bethany and mother were not, as the former was an "apostate" mage and the latter was a civilian.

Damn the creatures for their inhuman endurance and persistence!

"Ha-!" Garret and his siblings quickly turned around. Leandra had fallen onto her knees, panting hard as she forced the Maker's good air into her lungs. Behind her, the party of hurlocks gained ground, savage glee on their faces as their persistence rewarded them with an easy target.

"No!" Garret, Carver and Bethany shouted. As he and his brother rushed forward, he heard the scent of gathering ozone, a smell he had gotten used to whenever his sister was preparing magic. Altering his charge to a different path, he charged the darkspawn as a wave of fire streaked past his body, landing on the path and spraying a wall of flames.

The first few were incinerated as the flames consumed their flesh, but others burst through, stepping over the corpses of their fellow creatures. As the desire to protect his family caused a fire of its own to be ignited in his body, Garret roared as he brought the great-sword in a devastating blow that bisected the closest one to mother. Ignoring the spray of blood that splattered across his face, his following strike split the skull of the next, spilling viscous matter across the cold steel.

As Carver dealt with the stragglers, he helped his mother off of the ground. Maker, she was disheveled, both physically and emotionally. Her dress was stained with soot, dirt and blood accumulated from their exodus from the village. There were clear lines on her face where tears had fallen from her puffy, red eyes. There was nothing that he could do, save for a comforting hug which he gave to her, wrapping his arms around her in a protective embrace as she gathered her breath in his arms.

"I think that's the last of them," Carver panted, jogging back from the bodies to reunite with the family.

"For the moment, anyway," Bethany added, earning a brief scowl from her twin. Garret had to resist the urge to roll his eyes, but in troubling times like these, it would be better for them to be continuing with their..._banter_ rather than panicking and screaming like inexperienced children.

"Maker save us...w-we've lost it all," Leandra moaned after gathering enough breath to form a sentence. "Everything your f-father and I built..." her voice trailed off like the smoke in the wind, allowing him to interject.

"I know how much Lothering meant to you, Mother, but we have to move," he said firmly, but gently, scanning the immediate area around the family for any lurking surprises. If there was anything that he was grateful to the sergeant back at Ostagar -Maker rest his soul- for beating into him, it was the habit of always being aware of one's surroundings. It was an invaluable skill, key to their survival if they wanted to make the trail to safety come nightfall. He had no desire to remain in the ruins of the land with a darkspawn horde on the rampage.

"Yes...you're right-"

"We should have run sooner!" Bethany exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air and sending a glare that may or may not have been intended to land on Carver. "Why did we wait so long?" And...here it comes. It was never good to stop doing what you were doing in a do-or-die situation. If one was allowed time to think, the fear of dying would consume a man and cause him to behave in a self-defeating manner, giving up all hope. He had to quickly get them back moving.

"Why are you looking at us?!" Carver retorted, jabbing a finger at her accusation. "We've been running since Ostagar!"

"I don't mean to be rude," Garret interjected wryly, jerking his head towards a hurlock pack behind the wall of flames that Bethany had created earlier, "But the Blight isn't going to wait while we stand here twiddling our fingers." Now that he looked closer, it seemed that the pack seemed hungry -and desperate for food- enough to burst right through the flames.

"Please..." Leandra swallowed briefly before gaining enough confidence in her words to continue. "Listen to your brother."

Carver grunted before gesturing to the path up ahead. "Then let's go. Lead on."

_-Scene Break-_

_This was certainly shaping up to be something interesting, she mused as she saw the family hack and blast their way through the darkspawn that stood in their path. They stood together against the threat to their family, though they occasionally bickered and fought with words. Their leader was obviously the bearded man, whose eyes shone with the natural ability to lead others into hell without question. Strong in body and in morals, he was certainly an interesting man._

_For the past two days she was there, all she had seen were farmers and barbarians fleeing from the horde of corrupted monsters. Most had packs of the creatures themselves behind them as they fled, screaming prayers to a "Maker" that couldn't do too much to help them. It had done her good to alleviate her boredom, betting against herself to whether or not they would survive. Sadly, more often than not, they perished at the blades of the darkspawn._

_But these warriors had potential, just like those Grey Warden survivors, the sarcastic veteran and the aspiring mage, that she had sent her daughter and her romantic liaison with the other day. Honestly, did the girl think that she could hide the man and her own feelings from the woman who raised her as her own? She had obviously -and hopelessly- fallen in love with the man in black armor and red robes, whose hair was white and eyes shone with the color of sharpened steel, though neither her daughter nor he were aware of it. __The man himself was a mystery that she would delight in solving: how was one an archer, a swordsman and a mage at the same time? It would be a puzzle she would unlock as soon as Morrigan returned, where the ritual would commence and rid herself of this old-_

_Something stirred in the rock bellow her and she turned her thoughts away from her daughter's love life. Another person atop the rock was looking at the party bellow as they now met up with a pair of survivors. In this form, her vision was unparalleled as befitting her shape and she was able to see the figure clearly. _

_Red...black...white..._

_Flemeth's eyes widened in shock for the first time in many years. _

___-Scene Break-_

Tense minutes of fighting darkspawn hordes and bickering among themselves -primarily Bethany and Carver- found them in the company of a Templar, Ser Wesley, and his warrior bride, Avaline Vallen. Garret took the company of his new allies with a pinch of lyrium. Wesely was a Templar, meaning that the longer that the Hawke family was in his company, Bethany was in danger from being killed in a bout of self-righteous zealotry that the Chantry warriors were so fond of going into. He had to hope that his threat of "I stand with my sister" was enough of a deterrent to dissuade the Templar.

"Right," Wesely said, clutching his injured arm as his wife drove her sword into the last darkspawn hurlock that blocked the pathway up to the hill. "We need to continue moving if we are to escape the horde."

Garret made a noise of affirmation before gesturing for the party to follow his lead up the hill. They ran, stopping only to salvage any supplies that fallen refugees had on their bodies and engage any lingering darkspawn soldiers that impeded their progress. Leandra had decided for the family to take a ship to Kirkwall, where there was an estate in the hands of the Hawke family managed by a relative. It was their best and only option. There was nothing in Ferelden left for Garret, now that Lothering was destroyed and the King was dead. it would be good to move on and start afresh in a new land.

He stopped as he reached the center of the elevated clearing. In the distance, nothing had escaped razing and destruction. Ferelden burned, smoke rising from all corners in the distance as everything was consumed by the war machine of the Blight, driven by darkspawn at the whips of their masters...whatever the hell they were. He looked behind him, checking to make sure that everyone was still in coherency when a loud booming noise snapped him out of his thoughts.

From the path in front of him, a gargantuan beast charged up the hill, roaring and gnashing its teeth as it saw the party. It was a monster of terrible proportions, standing at twice the size of the tallest man. Horns jutted out the side of its head and it was layered in natural and metal armor strapped to its arms, chest and legs. Teeth the size of swords and just as sharp dribbled viscous drool mixed with the scent of rotting corpses. Once, it was a quanari, a noble creature of tradition an honor, but the darkspawn corruption had turned it into a plaything of darkness.

"Ogre!" Garret shouted, throwing himself out of the beast's charge as it bull rushed the party. He hit the ground harder than he would have liked, but it had served his intentions well. Where were the others? Bethany was slowly rising and Avaline was helping her husband up, but that meant that...Carver!

"You soulless bastards!" The battle cry from his younger brother flew from his lips as he charged the monster that threatened Leandra, who he had pushed to the ground. Bethany cried out and Garret shouted his own screams of "get out of the way, fool" as the warrior charged the ogre. The thought of losing his brother gave him energy to stand up, and he ran at full speed towards the ensuing combat.

"No!" His brother only landed one strike on the darkspawn's armor before the ogre grabbed his brother and held him in the air. He was too far, Bethany had no time to cast magic and Avaline was too busy seeing another wave of hurlocks coming up the path. Time slowed down as the monster brought up its arm, Hawke family member in its hands, to dash the thing it was holding to a bloody smear on the ground.

_-Scene Break-_

_There are eight steps to the art of the bow, known as kyudo in her older brother's land: a__shibumi, dozukuri, yugamae, uchiokoshi, hikiwake, kai, hanare, and zanshin. _

_The first five are mostly concerned with the positioning of the body and the preparation of the shot. For her, those five were simply preparations for the final three._

_The final three steps were always the ones that came easiest to her. Kai: the unity of the self and the target. Hanare: releasing the arrow that has become yourself and the moment time stops. And zanshin: the self that is shot to the target already knows "it will hit", and the action and the result become one to make the past and the future into a single point._

_As one who was familiar with joining herself with her inherited weapons, who knew how to release her intentions into physical form, and was inescapably linked with objects such as swords to the point where her body was made of them, these three were definitely the easiest for her to understand._

_"I am the bone of my sword..." It was a phrase that was once something that her brother intoned, but was now the words that defined her very existence. _

_The shot that she lined up is perfect. It will exist _within_ the monster, as __Zaiteki was defined,_ the highest level of skill her art possessed. _  
_

_ "My core is twisted in madness...Caladbolg."_

_-Scene Break-_

A brilliant flash of light was all Garret needed to throw himself to the ground for the second time that day. Something rocketed over his head, trailing brilliant flashes of red energy as it twisted in the air towards...the ogre? Before he had time to remember if Bethany knew any spell that could do this, the projectile slammed into the ogre from behind, causing it to roar in pain and in anguish. A split second later, the ogre rippled, then exploded in a fiery convocation of charred meat and steaming blood. The shock wave sent the eldest child of the Hawke family swearing as he flew through the air and crashed into a nearby rock.

Nope. Definitely not one of Bethany's spells. But Andraste's tits, what the hell was that thing?! He would worry about that later though. He had to find his little brother.

"C-Carver!" he choked out, coughing and hacking as he got up in the dust cloud the explosion caused. Visibility was bad; he couldn't see more than two feet in front of him. The only thing that he could make out was the sound of Bethany and Avaline trading spells and sword strikes with the hurlocks that had followed the ogre. Leandra was far away from the ogre, a guess made from the last time he saw her, and probably safe and scared to death as to what happened to her son. "Carver, if you're alive, where the bloody hell are you?!"

"Garret!" He whirled around to the approximate source of the voice. A few steps in that general direction took him to the form of his brother, amazingly still trapped in the severed hand of the ogre about to kill him. But aside from a cut that bled profusely down the side of his face, the second child of the Hawke family was alive and well. Garret slumped to the ground in both silent relief and thanks. Maker be praised...he was sure he would have lost his little brother.

"My boy! My little boy!" Leandra appeared from nowhere, throwing herself onto Carver and sobbing uncontrollably. "I-I don't w-want a bl-bloody h-hero!" her words were punctuated by little hiccups caused by her crying. "I only want m-my son..."

Garret grinned as Carver's face took on a look of mortification. This was a memory he would enjoy _forever_.

"You're alive!" Bethany shrieked, causing him to jump from his position as she joined her mother in sobbing for joy. "Thank the Maker you're alive, you idiot!"

The dust cloud was dying down, to the point where he could see a bit of the distant land beyond the hill. The clearing was now mostly visible, save for the edges that led up to the cliff face and the burning fields near the ruin of the tower. That explained how his sister managed to find them so quickly. Well, that and the piles of hurlock corpses that were scattered across the ground.

"Can you break out of there?" Garret asked as Avaline and Ser Wesely joined their "gathering" around Carver's trapped body.

He shook his head. "Can't. The bastard's grip is tight, even in death. And-" he hissed suddenly as Bethany involuntary moved one of the fingers. "-I think I have a few ribs broken."

Avaline gave the severed appendage a glance before coming to a conclusion "We'll have to break or cut the fingers in order to free your brother, Ser Hawke."

He nodded, tossing a knife to Bethany, who shrieked as it hit the ground. "Cut him out of there and fix his ribs, Beth. There's something that I need to investigate..."

Ignoring Bethany's protests, Garret stalked towards the center of the clearing where the ogre once stood. He kicked his way past chunks of smoking and runined flesh, using the tip of his boot to poke around in the mess. What was he looking for? He could have sworn that what hit the ogre was a spell, but whatever it was made the noise of steel going through flesh. It had to be a projectile of some sort. A loud _clank_ alerted him to something that lay underneath a section of what used to be the darkspawn's torso. Using his sword to shove smoking intestines out of the way, he felt the gaze of Avaline and Wesely behind him, but he didn't care at the moment; he was about to get the bottom of this mystery.

There. Planted blade down in a crater that he didn't even realize he was standing in, a sword gleamed brightly in the dim lighting of the afternoon, despire a lack of sun and the cloud coverage overhead. It was an odd shape for a sword, resembling a lance save for the spiraled edges that traveled down the length of the blade. But it was masterfully crafted, posessing a gold hilt inlaid with blue and a grip that looked like it could fit into any warrior's hand. Aside from its odd appearance, he would have assumed that it was simply an exotic blade wielded by an eccentric warrior, but he knew better than that.

This was the weapon that utterly _obliterated_ the ogre.

"Maker preserve us..." Avaline breathed upon sight of the weapon. Garret gingerly reached for the sword, taking it by the grip and yanking it out of the ground with as little force as he could muster. He was always an inquisitive sort, remembering several occasions in his childhood were he always acted without thinking, but this time he acted while thinking how gentle he could handle the sword without triggering another explosion. Holding it at arm's length for a good minute to make sure there were no after-effects, he slowly brought it into a more comfortable position. "How can such a thing..."

"That is no ordinary sword." The three of them turned to see Leandra and Bethany supporting a now-free Carver as they walked towards the crater. He looked much better than he did in the ogre's hand. Garret allowed the corners of his mouth the quirk up. Magic was a beautiful talent, with so many applications and uses -healing, for example. Shame he could never use it, though.

"How is he?" Garett asked, giving his brother a look-over when they stopped walking.

Carver gave him a grim smile and spat out a gobbule of blood. "I'll live, brother. But mother and our fool sister keep on insisting that I need to be helped about like a cripple."

"Hey! Who's the fool who helped knit your ribs back together?" Bethany interjected indignantly. "Your ankle still needs to re-familiarize itself after I healed it. Be grateful that I don't drop you."

Garret released a sigh of relief that he didn't know he was holding. If they were back to biting at each other's backsides, than it was more than enough to ensure that his brother was going to be fine. "Good to know that you'll be back to your dour self, brother," he said, clapping his free hand to Carver's shoulder. "But what was that you said, Bethany? About this sword?" With that, he managed to get everyone's attention onto the spiral sword he held gingerly in his right hand.

"That explosion was caused by magic," Bethany immediately explained, eyeing the weapon with a critical look. "There's no other way to explain it, but I know of no such enchantment or inscribed rune that can give such a power to this weapon."

"But it wasn't used like a sword," Carver put in, jerking his head back to the pieces of ogre that were strewn across the clearing. "That sword wasn't swung or stabbed at the ogre. That damn thing was _fired._" That put everyone on edge, even Carver who realized the signifigance of his words. If something killed the ogre with a flying sword, however rediculous that was, that meant that someone or something was watching them with an excellent shooting vintage. And in the clearing, they had no cover from a volley of arrows or more flying-exploding swords.

"May I see the weapon?" Avaline asked, holding out her outstretched hand. Garret hesitated, but nodded, passing the sword and praying that it wouldn't go off as it made a transition between owners. _Maker, please don't blow my arm off. Maker, please don't blow my arm off, Maker please don't blow my arm off..._

"Be careful, darling," Wesely warned her as she took a two-handed stance with the sword. The Templar was staring daggers at the spiral weapon with the hostility of what Garret figured was the equivilant of a Chantry brother to a mage. "This reeks of apostasy and blood magic!"

"I think that's just the smell of ogre liver clogging up your nose, ser," Carver muttered out of the corner of his mouth. Bethany snorted before a withering glare from the eldest Hawke silenced both of them. There was no room for jokes. The situation was as bad as it was without getting any worse. They were out in the open, being chased by a darkspawn horde and were stopping to examine an enchanted sword that destroyed an ogre in one shot. They had to resume running _immediately_ the second they were done, exhaustion be damned.

But as the warrior bride examined the sword, it shattered in her grasp. Garret swore explosively as the others screamed, believing that the enchantment in the weapon had finally caused the blade to break and kill them all in a fiery explosion. But to his and the others amazement, it shattered into fragments of light instead of shards of metal that he was expecting. They shimmered brightly in front of their shocked faces before fading away as the wind carried them off into the ash-choked sky.

What the hell just happened?!

"You really shouldn't touch things that belong to you."

At those words, Garret unsheathed his sword, pushing back Leandra and taking up his guard stance as he glared into the last whisps of smoke clouds that lingerd on the edge of the clearing. Other noises of weapons being unsheated were heard as well as an "omph!" that indicated that Bethany had unceremoniously dropped Carver in order to prepare her magic. As if decreed by the Maker himself, the wind picked up, taking away the last of the dust and revealing the source of the voice.

Garret dropped his sword.

Bethany's fireball sizzled out of existence.

Carver stopped swearing.

Atop a rock stood a slender figure, a young girl in her late teens, resplendid in black armor and girdled by a red cloak. Snow white hair trailed down her shoulders and backside, gentley swaying in the breeze. Where the armor met her waistline, a short skirt continued the trail of black, coming to cover up to her mid-thigh before a brief break made way for stockings of the same color to finish up to her boots. She stared at them with eyes the color of crimson blood, unflinching, cold and calculating as they held the stare.

The howling of darkspawn jolted Garret out of the starring match and he cursed as he saw another fresh wave of the monsters charging up the path. He fumbled for his sword as the others adjusted their parameters. Whoever the girl was, they could deal with her later. The hurlock horde was the bigger threat-

_"WHAT IN THE MAKER'S NAME IS SHE DOING?" _Bethany shrieked.**  
**

Within a second, the girl had thrown herself off of the rock, bull-rushing the oncoming darkspawn with all the strength that she could muster. Exclamations and cries of warning went unheeded by the weaponless girl, who was, in the party's opinion, more than certainly charging towards her death.

_"Trace on."_

It was nothing more than a whisper that carried beyond the wind, but he heard it nonetheless, instinctively turning towards the speaker. Light flared to life in the girl's outstretched hands, condensing and growing in size as his and the others' astonishment grew in direct proportion. It was taking the shape of something...forming itself into the luminescent outline of a weapon. A final flash revealed the product of the condensed radiance. Where the outline was once, now rested two curved swords, one of darkest night and one of brightest white, gleaming brightly amidst the smoke and ash.

He ignored his senses that screamed "magic" and "danger" and "threat" at his mind. They were the most beautiful weapons that he had ever seen.

There was no doubt about it; this was the owner of the spiral sword, the one who saved Carver, and the slayer of the ogre.

She crashed into the monsters with the ferocity of a spear hurled by the Maker, breaking the coherency of the pack and sending the creatures scattering. Her blades were moving with a speed that he could barely keep up with, rending and slashing darkspawn indiscriminately with every strike of her swords. The monsters screamed as the blades bit into their flesh, something that Garett had never seen before with packs of hurlocks. They were too slow to catch her unawares, as every attack they made at her was parried and countered with an extreme prejudice that sent each offender to its bloody grave.

This...this was a slaughter, by all accounts, but why was he entranced with such destruction? He was a warrior himself, not unfamiliar to bloody combat. There was ferocity contained in her movements, though it didn't amount to his strength, but they flowed seamlessly from one strike to the next one. She was like a dancer underneath a moonlit night, gliding across the battlefield with her partners to the rhythm of clashing steel where death set the tempo for its guests...

...She was a Sword Dancer...

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******If you have any comments, threats, flames, criticisms, etc. please don't hesitate to PM me or post a review. I will accept it with my head held low and my body and mind humble. Just try not to overly curse me if I did anything overtly stupid.**

******I hope you enjoyed the chapter.**


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